Tuesday, March 22, 2016

From Inverse by Megan LoganIn some ways, Asimov's vision of the future was eerily close to the mark.In others, not so much.

In Alternate Futures, we take a look at incorrect predictions from the past in order to better understand what we can foresee and what we cannot.
“Population
pressure will force increasing penetration of desert and polar areas.
Most surprising and, in some ways, heartening, 2014 will see a good
beginning made in the colonization of the continental shelves.
Underwater housing will have its attractions to those who like
watersports, and will undoubtedly encourage the more efficient
exploitation of ocean resources, both food and mineral.” - Isaac Asimov,
Visit to the World’s Fair of 2014, 1964
In some ways,
Asimov was eerily close to the mark.
He was pretty right about
population pressure — and even pretty close in his population
predictions (he predicted a US population of 350 million, 2014 census
puts it at 318.9 million).
But he might have overestimated both human
ambition and the speed of technological advancement.
He didn’t
understand how we could alleviate population pressure or just how much
we could stand.
Underwater housing is limited to a few submarines
and a lab in the Florida Keys.
And people aren’t exactly migrating en
masse to deserts and polar climates, so what made Asimov think we’d be
living underwater by 2014?
And why aren’t we?

Your voyage to the bottom of the ocean begins with this submarine exosuit

designed by Nuytco Research.

Hostile environments are challenging and challenges are expensive

Underwater,
polar, and desert environments are hostile towards human life.
Hostile
environments necessitate advanced design, engineering, and the creation
of supply lines.
There’s a good reason as to why cities form around
major waterways, ports, and railroads: We rely heavily on trade and
imported goods.
There are no underwater railroads and Antarctic
infrastructure is almost nonexistent.
The complexities that come
with building habitats capable of withstanding conditions like sub-zero
temperatures, significant heat, permanent or long-term submersion or
underwater pressure are vast.
Add our dependence on outside resources
and a total inability to grow food without major allowances (tons of
water without rain, robust greenhouses, etc.) in hostile environments.
We’re talking about a lot of money.
We’re also talking about building
systems for sanitation and sewage, food production, water treatment, and
transportation in hostile environments, which, again, means a lot of
money.
To be fair, just because it’s expensive doesn’t mean it’s impossible (though we’re still pretty damn far away on the underwater colonization front).
But it does mean that someone needs to put up the money.
Given our
government’s state of affairs, monetary resources for moonshot
colonization projects seems much more unlikely than living underwater,
so we’re probably talking about private sector funding, which requires
interest and opportunities for profit.
That brings us to our next point:
human nature.

Utopian underwater living : Imagine a world where cities bustle under the sea.Despite attempts to colonize the ocean, only wreckage of the dream remains. National Geographic channel

Humans Adore a Vacuum

Perhaps
the most important thing that Asimov didn’t consider?
Humans beings, by
and large, hate change and love comfort and cleanliness.
Without a real
kick in the ass, we tend to just carry on as usual; it would likely
take a pretty major event for us to make a home in a place that’s
naturally antagonistic towards human life.
Take a look at our global inaction on the issue of climate change,
for example.
Clearly things have to get very, very bad before we get
our shit together, and apparently the strain of a growing population on
our global infrastructure hasn’t reached the call-to-action breaking
point yet.
Beyond that, it takes a special person to commit to
life underwater or in sub-zero temperatures, even if we solve the loads
of expensive R&D problem.
Sure, there are mavericks, those people
willing to go on one-way trips to Mars and the like.
But for the most
part, we’re a bunch of lazy blobs who prefer to be close to amenities
and creature comforts, thanks very much.

Introducing Mission Aquarius - Dive into an Underwater Laboratory

Population Density Isn’t All Bad

There’s
a reason why city populations have skyrocketed and continue to grow:
they have a lot to offer.
They provide excitement and opportunity,
whereas pushing into sparsely-populated areas presents many challenges,
no matter the environment.
Venturing further into desert environments is
probably the most plausible of Asimov’s three scenarios, but it hasn’t
come to pass in a significant way because humans are drawn to
opportunity, not strife.
To be fair, his visions of these desert,
polar and underwater habitats themselves probably weren’t places of
great hardship.
He talks about the General Motors “model of an
underwater hotel of what might be called mouth-watering luxury” at the
1964 World’s Fair.
Even if “mouth-watering luxury” were the case,
though, we’re looking at a pretty serious overestimation: Of the
resources for proper infrastructure to build grand, comfortable colonies
in inhospitable environments.
Whether it’s a matter of
dedication, funding, resources, solving hostile environments, or human
nature, Asimov’s prediction for 2014 wasn’t quite right.
Perhaps Asimov
overestimated the spirit of adventure inherent to human beings.
Maybe he
just hoped we’d have more interest in an amphibious lifestyle than we
seem to.
His predictions weren’t laughably off-base, but they certainly
didn’t come to pass in this universe.
Maybe in an alternate one.